Repent at Leisure
by Randomizer
Summary: JamesLily, with a twist. Remember the bit in OotP when Harry wondered why his mother married James, and if he forced her to do so? Well, what if he had?


Title: Repent at Leisure

Author: Randomizer

Rating: PG-13/T

Archive: ff . net for now; might be posted elsewhere if I can find an archive I like enough

Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" characters/settings/concept belong to JKR.

Summary: James/Lily, with a twist. Remember the bit in OotP when Harry wondered why his mother married James, and if he forced her to do so? Well, what if he had?

Beta read by Cormorant.

Prologue: Captive

"... till death do us part."

For all his inexperience with rituals Muggle, James Potter had recited the words letter-perfect, albeit in a monotone, through to the end.

Which meant that the pendulum had swung her way, that she must echo the sounds that had just been addressed to her, and as Lily Evans stood there in her pristine white dress, pattern as unique as that of any stray snowflake, she believed for one hysterical moment that she had indeed mercifully been struck mute, until she heard her voice quaver into being.

"I, Lily Anne Evans, take you..."

So soon, she faltered, unable to utter his name, unwilling to say any other, and above all wishing she dared Disapparate before the curious gaze of the Muggle priest. She couldn't, of course. The most she had been able to do was angle away from him as much as she could discreetly manage.

Her eyes darted around the room as if they might escape and carry the rest of her along, past her trio of friends and James's like number. The abbreviated guest list had been his single concession. The date had long been fixed, the fact of the matter incontrovertible. And in this ceremony as in all else her groom had done--how he had manipulated Peter, betrayed Sirius, used Remus, hoodwinked Dumbledore and the others--a Machiavellian cunning underscored each maneuver.

Although it was a balmy afternoon, she shivered.

The priest cleared his throat; James's grip tightened on hers, then relented, and she glanced down at the ghost imprints of his fingers.

"Just bridal nerves," he murmured to Sirius at his elbow. Lily choked back a laugh as she wondered if this was only the second lie he had ever told his best friend, or if there were more. And if she would ever learn what the others were. And if it mattered.

She started again, more loudly.

As she knew the syllables verbatim, this time to distract herself from their meaning, she surveyed her surroundings. On another day, to an innocent couple, the setting must appear merely a darling chapel in East London, with the gilded sunlight slashing a jagged rainbow through the stained-glass windows. She supposed even she would find the locale charming, under rather altered circumstances.

Her eyes skittered to the back of the building, past the deserted seating to the stationary doors. In a flash of honesty, she admitted that she had never fully believed her plain white envelope affixed with proper postage and sent via the Muggle post would lure Petunia to this unholy event. Besides, if by chance her sister had attended, along with her husky husband Vernon, undoubtedly they would have plunked themselves into the rearmost pew and aimed their miasma of disapprobation at the handful of other guests.

"Weirdos," Vernon would have snorted of best-man Sirius and his indolent pose, Peter with his avid eyes, Remus's fixed smile.

"Miscreants," Petunia would have chimed in, of Peter's uncomfortable shifting, Remus's stiff posture, and Sirius's loosened tie.

"Freaks," they would have chorused at the sight of Marlene McKinnon, Greta Catchlove, and Dorcas Hilliard, looking like quasi-strangers even to Lily in their exceedingly formal Muggle wear.

No, she hadn't truly counted on Petunia's presence. Neither today nor at tomorrow's looming wizards' ceremony. And at the very thought of enduring this agony again, her heart drummed a tattoo of doom against her breast.

It wasn't even that she didn't want him, she told herself. It was more that she didn't want him like _this_, but if she wanted him at all she knew she could have him no other way.

On the heels of this thought, she registered that silence had descended in the building. Had she automatically finished? The priest's lips were moving, though he made no sound. Then James's were.

'LIAR,' she thought.

A dollop of time later, and he was tethering the silver ring to her finger, his hands as warm as his eyes were not. He leaned close, Oedipus's old man to her cane. She did not flinch. As his lips settled over hers, there in that secluded little chapel in Havering amidst the heady scent of peach blossoms, she was sure of only one thing: She'd been left with nothing except him.

end prologue

Part 1 is being beta read and will be posted when ready.


End file.
